Preparação para a atuação profissional: perspectivas de concluintes e egressos de um curso de graduação em Terapia Ocupacional

Abstract

At the same time that undergraduate students are called to think about specific contents and situations related to their career, they need to deal with a daily life full of academic demands, and with contextual factors associated with life inside and outside the university. Considering the single trajectories experienced by college students and that they culminate in expectations, plans and/or professional achievements, this study aimed to analyze/evaluate recent Occupational Therapy graduate students perspective about their professional development after taking UFPB bachelor degree program. For this, a descriptive and exploratory research, with a quanti-qualitative approach, was carried out through the virtual application of a semi-structured questionnaire between the months of October 2020 and February 2021. The data were systematized and categorized, so that the information from the open questions of the questionnaire underwent content analysis and were complemented by the information resulting from the closed questions, enriching the understanding of the researched reality. From the 49 subjects invited to participate, 32 answered the questionnaire, which corresponds to 65.3% of the total. Most participants are women and young people, residents in João Pessoa/PB and 37.5%% had to move due to studies. The overlapping of activities during graduation was experienced by 34.4% of respondents who took care of children or other dependent people and by 37.5%, who worked. When reflecting on their own professional preparation, 59% declared that they considered themselves partially prepared. The justifications listed showed the different perceptions and attitudes towards academic apprehensions, regardless of the stated conditions of preparation. Professional updating was recognized as necessary by the majority, and specifically by the graduates, related to the challenges faced in the workplace. In general, practical activities and theoretical classes were considered positive for professional preparation. As for the oral and written assessment activities, they were perceived as neutral or negative, which indicates the need to implement procedural assessments and activities that encourage students' autonomy and protagonism. Regarding the competences judged as essential for the performance of the profession and which many considered to have developed, professional reasoning and relational competences stand out. The subjects highlighted the need for more practical activities, since the beginning of the course and in a better distributed way between periods. Some graduates already involved in the profession questioned the market demands regarding overvalued, profitable and elite specializations. Participants suggested that the course take more approaches to the expressive demands in Paraíba, including from the private sector, which can contribute to the job proposals being analyzed more critically. Interests were revealed in taking courses, lato and stricto sensu postgraduate courses and in working in assistence field, in different age groups and in diversified areas of the profession. It is believed that the results obtained will help to understand which elements of the current curriculum contribute to the professional preparation of students and which contextual factors tend to facilitate and/or hinder their involvement in the academic scenario and in professional training in general.